


There and Back Again

by WandererRiha



Category: ReBoot - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WandererRiha/pseuds/WandererRiha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of exploratory one-shots detailing Bob's time in the WEB, and then what he did with himself during the brief interlude of peace between the WEB Wars and Daemon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bunking

Those not guarding the herd made camp in the center of a hollowed asteroid. Too big to be tumbled much in the shifting currents of energy; it accommodated the six riders and single Guardian fairly well. Bob personally thought it a bit cramped, but supposed one couldn’t afford to be too picky out here. The bedrolls, to Bob’s confusion and mild shock, were musty hides of different creatures that varied in texture from leathery scales to thick and matted fur. One of the latter pelts was thrown at him. It smelled strongly of creature and sweat, but he was cold enough that it didn’t matter. Throwing the skin around his shoulders, Bob selected a spot and settled down to try to sleep. 

Exhaustion bought him a few microseconds but the cold soon woke him. Arms crossed and knees tucked to his chest, Bob huddled more deeply into his dusty fur blanket and tried to go back to sleep. It took a nano to realize that the asteroid wasn’t shaking; he was shivering and that chattering sound was his teeth. An ungentle nudge from one of the Rider’s boots roused him fully and Bob squinted up at him in the darkness. The Rider gestured with one arm towards an indistinct heap a few bits away. Without waiting for a response, he grabbed the half-frozen Guardian around the bicep and dragged him across the cave. Unsure why the dark and blurry mound needed investigating at this exact moment, Bob followed along, forcing cold-cramped muscles to obey as best he could.

Upon closer inspection the mound appeared to be snoring. Part of the shape roused itself, the crest of a Rider’s helmet peering up at them from the pile of rugs and bodies. It took Bob’s sleep-starved, cold-stalled brain a moment to realize the Riders had heaped themselves and their bedding together, dog pile, in order to conserve body heat. The pile of men and hides shifted slightly, creating a space. His escort shoved him towards the newly-formed gap and Bob gladly collapsed into the pre-warmed trench. The Rider followed right behind, drawing his body parallel with Bob’s before re-wrapping the creature skins around them both. Under any other circumstances Bob would have considered the sleeping arrangements entirely too odd for his taste. However, being curled up with half a dozen men he couldn’t even speak with was probably the _least_ weird thing that had happened to him all second, and the shared heat made the close quarters seem a negligible detail.

Slowly, the frozen stiffness in his neck and legs lifted. Pins and needles prickled his toes and fingertips as feeling returned. Sighing into his mask, Bob allowed himself to uncurl somewhat, instinctively leaning back into the warmth of the Rider’s body. The Rider rattled off a sleepy, friendly-sounding screech and patted him on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” Bob yawned, hoping his tone would get the point across. It must have, for the Rider replied with a few staccato beeps.

Now that the half-frozen sensation had left him, his nose was the only thing keeping him awake. The stench of unwashed man and blankets was making his eyes water even through his mask’s filters. Snuggling deeper into his own rug, Bob discovered that if he kept a fold of it over his nose and mouth, he only had to smell himself. Compared to everyone else, he was springtime fresh. However, even the stink of sweat and tanned pelts was beginning to matter less and less. His bunkmate, apparently judging Bob was warm enough, had withdrawn his arms and turned so they lay back-to-back. Bob found this arrangement far less awkward. Heat and personal space restored, exhaustion overtook him and he fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.


	2. Old Apartment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bob has an unexpectedly hard time settling back in.

Despite it all, it was still good to be home. Thank the User he hadn’t _actually_ been gone that long. The retro-fitted _Saucy Mare_ and scrambling pirates were the first things he’d recognized. When he’d seen Matrix and then AndrAIa, he’d nearly had a heart-attack. Fortunately, it seemed the kids had compiled almost overnight due to excessive game-hopping. It was nice to know that even delayed, there was still something he could do. Better late than never, right?

The restored system, minus the looming façade of Silicon Tor, looked good to him. So too did the inside of his apartment. Sadly, the restore didn’t seem to have affected his beloved 262. The car had been tricked out and re-painted a viral blue by Megabyte’s lackeys. While it was nice to know that the thing would reliably start and wasn’t likely to stall in mid-flight… It had been Bob’s project. _He_ had saved up for it and purchased it, _he_ had spent happy if not always productive microseconds working on it, _he_ had wanted to be the one to finally get the spammed interrociter to work. Except someone else had done it for him. Eyeing the vehicle sadly, Bob mentally promised himself to repaint it a bright, cherry red as soon as he had time. For now, he just wanted to sit down.

The sectional sofa had come with the apartment along with its glaringly loud upholstery. The fabric was ugly, but it had a pleasant, fuzzy texture and the cushions were comfortable. He’d meant to replace it, but it had never happened. One more thing on his “to do” list. Sinking back onto the cushions, Bob leaned his head back and allowed himself a small groan. User, he was tired.

“Hey! Bob!”

Jerking his head up, Bob’s panic subsided mildly. His old television, Mike, had come skipping into the room.

“Good to have you back! Boy that was some close call, don’t know what we’d have done without you! You sure are a hero! Hey, love the new look. That is one fabulous outfit and I am _loving_ that hair!”

Everyone did, though why that was, Bob was sure he didn’t know.

“Hey Mike, good to see you too.” And he actually meant it. While the TV could be annoying, Bob had to admit that he had missed his cheerful prattle. “How were things while I was gone?”

“Oh they sucked,” the TV nodded. “But you’re back now and there’s no more Megabyte and Hex is…um…better? Well, anyway, things are back to normal!”

“I’m glad I wasn’t really gone as long as I thought,” Bob mused more to himself than to Mike, leaning back against the couch once more.

“Yeah, only a few days, but that sure felt like a long time.”

“Yeah,” Bob agreed, thoughts elsewhere, “it did.”

Mike, for once, stood silent, evidently aware that his Guardian’s attention was not on him.

“Um…Bob?” he asked, hesitantly.

“Huh?” Bob blinked, startled back to earth by Mike’s comment. “Oh, sorry. Hey, um, mind catching me up on what happened? I’d love to know what went on but I don’t think Dot or anyone else really wants to talk about it.”

It was half-true. Dot, though showing a renewed affection for him, had become withdrawn and vague when asked about the events that had transpired in his absence. She didn’t want to talk, and he didn’t want to upset her, and so he’d let the matter drop. The other half of the reason was that _he_ didn’t want to talk about his own misadventures. Everyone was curious about what had happened to him, but no one had been bold enough to ask. Bob was eager to keep it that way. Mike could be relied on to blab on and on without pause for breath and as long as he was busy talking, he wouldn’t be able to ask any questions.

Sitting back, Bob watched while Mike relayed the past few days’ events, a montage of disquieting images flickering past on his screen. The loss of Enzo and AndrAIa in the game, the fall of the Principle Office, the Viral invasion, Phong’s capture, the valiant stand taken by Dot and her resistance… If only he’d been there. If only he hadn’t…

He couldn’t see the screen anymore. Mike’s picture had gone blank and blurry, his rapid-fire broadcast drowned out by ragged sobs. It took Bob a nano to realize the sobs were his own.

“Um…Bob?” Mike’s broadcast had paused, a still frame lingering on his screen. “Bob? Are you, um, okay?”

Bob didn’t answer. Elbows leaning on his knees and head in his hands, he covered his face and wept. It was an uncomfortable moment for Mike. Despite sharing comparatively small dwelling space with the Guardian, this was not something he’d encountered before. Sure there’d been plenty of moments of awkwardness, like the lock on the bathroom door that didn’t completely latch, having to listen to snoring through cold season, Bob chasing him around the room after attempting to advertise the latest and greatest product to hit the market, but this was different. The Guardian was generally a laid-back, easy-going sprite who wasn’t afraid to say what he thought, but this… Seeing the system protector randomly dissolve into tears was disquieting to say the least.

Unsure what else to do, Mike launched into a series of cheerful commercials.

“Don’t be blue— ”

Okay, maybe not that one.

“ _Smile when you laugh and the world laughs with you, smile, smile, smile—_ ” Hmm… Apparently Bob wasn’t up for a musical either.

“Hey did you hear the one about…?”

Mike let the picture drop, his eyes and brow becoming visible without the image. Bob hadn’t looked up once, not even to scold him or order him to leave the room. Something _had_ to be seriously wrong. Feeling uncomfortable and dreadfully out of his depth, Mike crossed the floor to the sofa.

“Hey…” he offered awkwardly, resting a mitten-like hand on Bob’s arm. “It’s okay… C’mon, it’ll be all right…”

Apparently the meager attempts at comfort had done a better job than perky advertisements. Bob sniffed and rubbed at his tear-slicked cheeks with one hand.

“S-sorry Mike,” he stammered, attempting to gain control of himself again. “Dunno what’s the matter with me…”

“It’s all right, man. Let it out,” Mike encouraged in his best New Age Sensitive Guy voice. 

This did draw a brief chuckle and strained smile from behind the tears. The moment of levity appeared to have done the trick. Scrubbing the back of one hand across his eyes, Bob’s tears subsided and he pulled himself together again.

“Thanks for the update, Mike. Think you could end the broadcast day for the time being? I’m really tired.”

“Oh sure thing,” Mike agreed for what was probably the first time in his life.

Without further comment, Bob hauled himself off the couch and trudged into his room, the door sliding shut behind him. Commanded to keep it down, and with no better way to amuse himself, Mike parked himself outside the Guardian’s bedroom, just in case a little late-night channel surfing should be required.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to BNL and their song "Old Apartment" which lent its title and gave me the idea in the first place.
> 
> _Broke into the old apartment_  
>  This is where we used to live  
> Broken glass, broke and hungry  
> Broken hearts and broken bones  
> This is where we used to live 


	3. Unpacking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, it's the baggage in our heads that's hardest to let go.

Nullzilla had taken care of his last attempts at interior design, and the system restore had reverted the modest flat back to its original tacky and slightly Spartan furnishings. Guardians didn’t carry much with them in the way of house wares, most of that was supplied in the form of barracks and mess halls. A System protector such as himself was usually granted a stipend from the people he was protecting, but it didn’t afford much. MainFrame’s people, he had heard, had been particularly generous. As such, Bob appreciated his slightly-dated top-floor apartment all the more. It was his, and they had given it to him as the best payment they could offer; the least they could do.

Standing with his back to the bedroom door, Bob didn’t feel as if he’d earned the stark little room at all. Right now he was so far behind in his ‘rent’ that it was a wonder he hadn’t been evicted to sleep on the Principle Office floor. Granted Phong probably had guest bedrooms to spare, but that wasn’t the point. Looking at the small room now, it was strange to think that he had ever thought it somewhat cramped: just an end table, a twin bed, and a picture window of his home system on the wall above. Sink and toilet were built into a closet-like space off to one side, and the shower wrapped around behind.

_Shower._

When was the last time…? Bob shook his head, not wanting to dredge the dreaded second to the front of his memory. Instead he glanced briefly at the pristine surface of the mattress and trudged past it towards the tiled half-circle. He didn’t want to dirty anything with the layers of grime and sweat accumulated from days in the WEB and minutes battling Viral hordes.

His boots clicked slightly on the shiny yellow squares, the auto path moving him forward and under a column of warm energy. Rather than let it scoot forward after only a handful of nanoseconds, Bob extended one arm beyond the warm flow to touch the pause button. For microseconds he just stood there, enjoying the warmth, the feeling of cleanliness percolating through the plate and chain mail of his armor, around each matted strand of hair. Eyes closed, shoulders slumped, he simply stood. Here in MainFrame, protected by an envirosphere and the benefits of things like janitors and street sweepers, a light coating of dust on the coffee table was about as bad as it got. Heat rose in his cheeks along with the memory of his first awkward experience concerning personal hygiene in the WEB.

Bathing in the WEB was primitive at best. After his initial foray with the riders, he had reeked almost as bad as one of the herd creatures. None of the riders- equally pungent in their clothing of hide and scales- seemed to notice or care. Data streams were hard to come by out on the trail where the creatures grazed, and the precious liquid was usually conserved for drinking rather than washing. Not until they had arrived safely at the home ranch had any of them bared more than hands and faces in order to rid themselves of the very worst of surface dirt.

“Come on, Pretty,” they had called to him. “Time to clean up.”

Bypassing the living areas and storage cells, they had led him down a winding wormhole to a warm cavern. In the center of the floor, a data spring bubbled from the depths of a subterranean stream. Already there were Sprites submerged in it up to their shoulders as if it were a hot tub. It took Bob an extremely tense millisecond to realize with profound relief, amid the rising steam and murky liquid, that they were all male.

It had been so…so… _manual_. The riders hadn’t simply clicked icons and invoked a change of wardrobe with a verbal command; they had peeled off layers of filthy scales and leather and shucked them to the floor before taking rags and brick-like cakes of gray, greasy soap and scrubbing their mangled hides with their own two hands (or what was left of them). That alone had startled him, but what had truly shocked him was the rider’s apparent lack of modesty. While the manual change of costumes was uncommon in the Net, it wasn’t unheard of. However, in such instances, one usually preserved a minimum of decency. Evidently that did not apply out in the wilderness of cyberspace. Undergarments as well as boots and gauntlets were cast aside, leaving Bob, still standing in his shorts, feeling awkward in the extreme. Apparently no one was bothered by anyone else’s nudity or ugliness. Bob, however, was beginning to feel unpleasantly out of place as the now clean riders looked at him expectantly from the data spring.

“Well don’t _look_ at me!” he had shouted, voice cracking to an embarrassing falsetto in mid-sentence. Although the outburst had been in his native language, they seemed to understand and shrugged pleasantly before turning their heads or averting their gaze. Gif, the leader, even obligingly flopped his tentacle left hand over his beady blue eyes. Their good-natured chuckles and lack of staring hadn’t helped much. Still dressed in damp and rather soapy shorts, Bob approached the spring with fear and trepidation.

“No one cares,” Gif had assured him. “Do not be embarrassed.”

It wasn’t their judgment of his comparatively handsome physique, lean and wiry as he had become, so much as their concept (or lack thereof) of personal space. His expression must have made his thoughts evident, for Gif’s features knotted in consternation and then softened into neutrality.

“We are all men, here. Men of honor. No one is going to harm you.”

Swallowing his nerves as best he could, Bob nodded. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them; they’d certainly spent enough time keeping him alive while acclimating him to their strange, harsh world. However, the situation still made him more than a little nervous. Summoning the dregs of his bravado, he put one foot in the pool. The rest of him soon followed.

It had been beautifully warm, hot in fact, almost too hot to bear after so much exposure to the cold outdoors. Breath caught briefly in his lungs, it escaped in a long, low sigh as Bob sank to his shoulders in the bath. Although it should have seemed crowded, the riders on either side were each giving him at least a micro of space. It wasn’t a lot, but the lack of physical contact did much for his nerves.

Perhaps because the full-body immersion was so infrequent, he’d never gotten used to it. Never had he been able to summon the stomach to get into the natural Jacuzzi completely nude, always leaving his worn, gray boxers intact. Standard issue. The academy tailors would have been proud.

Sweet User, he still had those same undershorts _on_. At least now he was in close enough proximity to simply download a new pair. A change of clothes period would be wonderful. Lifting one sluggish hand, he tapped his icon once. However, rather than gather the necessary brain cells to summon a new outfit, he simply let the setting default. The armor was heavier than he’d thought. Standing there without it, the icon hanging from a short strap around his neck his only clothing, gave him a surreal feeling of weightlessness. Or maybe it was because he was still hungry and sleep-deprived? Either way, he felt cleaner than he had in ages. Finally keying the flow to a stop, Bob braced himself for the jerk forward and the descent of the blow-dryer. He had only a split nano to decide on something before the shower spit him back out into his bedroom. At the moment, the only thoughts on his mind were of long procrastinated downtime. As such, the little-used pajamas that appeared were less of a surprise than they would have been otherwise. Skin radiating with warmth and cleanliness, Bob flopped onto the soft surface of the repulsor face-first. Sleep in the WEB had required cramped positions that conserved body heat, and his muscles automatically curled him into a tight ball on his side until he remembered that his apartment was climate controlled, and that he had a blanket. He hit the button more by accident than anything else and stretched out on his back for the first time in what felt like ages.

_Good to be home…_

It was the last thought before his mind shut down to sleep. With any luck, he’d be too tired to dream.


	4. User Interface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bob can't bring himself to sacrifice one life for another, not now that he knows the secret.

It had been ages since he’d come to present himself, to seek audience. Not many people used the little private chamber, at least no one had ever been using it when Bob wanted to and so he felt as if it belonged to him personally. It had been impossible to direct-connect like this while stranded in the WEB. While contact had not been cut off entirely, Sprite-User interfacing was very different there than it was in the ‘Net. The Riders tended to gather together to offer mass praise and supplication. Bob, however, preferred the privacy of the little gray-white room off to one side of the Principle Office’s main hall.

Because the room was situated near the center of the huge spherical complex, there were no windows, only a single door that served as both entrance and exit. Unlike most of the other rooms, there was no work-station, no Vid-Window, just a low, square dais in the center of the floor. Door sliding shut behind him, Bob keyed the lock and took the half-dozen steps toward the low platform. A small section of it was padded, and his knees sank into the soft surface as he knelt down, back to the door. Being in the WEB had gotten him out of the habit, but he’d been meaning to come here for a while now. Things had finally calmed down enough that taking a few microseconds aside was possible. So many things had been chasing around in his mind of late, coming here seemed to help straighten things out. Bowing his head, he closed his eyes and spoke the query:

“Guardian 452 initializing update.”

A faint whir sounded in his ears along with a soft click as his icon rotated and detached from its place on his uniform. It hung in space briefly before turning so that the many wires and circuits of its reverse side faced the ceiling.

A moment.

Two.

A ray of brilliant blue light shot up from the small disk, the beam piercing the space between ceiling and floor, creating a swirling rift a few bits above Bob’s head. The hole in reality shone faintly blue but with no definite color in the depths beyond. There was nothing visible, but it was certainly there, just beyond the edge of the gap, out of sight, but not out of reach.

“ **Status?** ”

The word was not unkind, nor was it overtly benevolent. It had been a long time since he’d heard it and Bob let out the breath he’d been holding, painfully glad that even after combining with Glitch, they were still recognizable. He had been half afraid he might be dismissed. Although he had faced that featureless voice countless times in Game after Game, Bob couldn’t help the vague nerves that always accompanied these encounters.

“The program has been compromised,” Bob confessed. “Attempt at upgrade has failed.” In its most brutal form, it was the truth. Yes, everyone had gotten out of the WEB safely; yes, MainFrame was free again; yes, Hex- User rest her code- had been cured, but the hard, cold fact was that merging with Glitch had ultimately done a lot of damage to both himself and the Keytool.

The nod was invisible, but there nonetheless, accompanied by an encouraging “ **Okay.** ”

Bob took heart and pressed on.

“System repairs incomplete. Virus Hexadecimal has been quarantined and healed,” well, sort of, “no threat detected.” For now. “Trojan Horse Megabyte is still on your hard drive.”

“ **Delete.** ” came the emphatic reply. Bob shook his head.

“If you delete Megabyte, you will lose part of another program!”

While he’d had his guesses before, Bob was ashamed of how long it had taken him to put two and two together. Nibbles and Nullzilla had been his first real clue, but it hadn’t made any sense at the time. “Jelly-Welly” and a more in-depth discussion on what had happened on both ends when the twin city was destroyed had made him wonder, but it had been Hexadecimal’s curious altering of the younger Enzo’s icon and Nibbles subsequent regaining speech and personality that clinched it for him. Megabyte and Hexadecimal each carried an important part of Welman Matrix’s code. Without that code fragment, there was no hope of fully reuniting Dot, Matrix, and Enzo with their father. Bob himself was all too aware of what that felt like.

“Sprite Welman Matrix will be lost if you delete Megabyte. I can’t do that to Dot, to Enzo. Hexadecimal was right, a big brother just isn’t enough. Matrix is proof of that. I can’t let them down again. Please, just…give me a hint and a little more time, that’s all I’m asking. I know I can correct this if you let me.”

An almost unbearably long pause.

**Okay.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was mostly me exploring what religion might look like in MainFrame. And yes, this was heavily inspired by the last scene in the original "TRON".


	5. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after the whole "Mega-Bob" fiasco.  
> Dot begins to appreciate Bob- ACTUAL Bob- a bit more. Even with Glitch back where he should be, thing's are quite the same. They've all got their scars, his are just more visible.

It wasn’t the same, seeing him like this, not like it was in Games where costumes and texture maps had disguised or altered his familiar shape. It was hard to believe the uniform, his second-to-second clothing, had hidden even more. Code and Glitch restored to their proper places, he looked and sounded like himself again, but there was a guardedness lurking behind his smile that hadn’t been there before. It would be a lie to say that wasn’t at least partly her fault.

Upon his return, the only part of him Dot had truly recognized was his name. His name followed quickly by his icon and lastly, mostly, his eyes. The hair, the scars, the uniform, had rendered him so alien that had Mouse not had him bent-backwards in a movie file smooch, she might not have believed it really was him. He didn’t even _sound_ like himself, the toxic atmosphere of the WEB having eaten away at his vocal chords as well as his face. The cadence, the tone, the inflection of one compiled in the Super Computer were still there, but every line seemed to be delivered in a stranger’s voice. It was as if he were impersonating himself. Perhaps that was why it had been easy- too horribly easy- to believe that the memory brought to life of the old Bob had been the real one.

Reaching, she gently smoothed a silver lock from his eyes, fingers just brushing his temples. There had been scars there not so long ago; wicked little nicks and cuts and half-healed scabs that too clearly spoke of the losing battle his body had fought against the WEB’s elements. Only the faintest marks were left now, delicate patches of darker blue bruises where the skin was still healing. Although his hair and skin might be restored, his shape remained wasted.

Patching his code had erased much of the cosmetic evidence of his misadventures, but his familiar blue and navy uniform, unlike Glitch’s gleaming plate mail, did not provide the illusion of bulk that in reality Bob no longer had. Food had been rationed in MainFrame, more out of precaution than anything else. No one had gone hungry. Bob, however…

The uniform and light body armor softened the valleys and hills of his ribs. At least two links had been removed from his belt but it still drifted downward until it snagged and caught haphazardly on the points of his hips. The skin and muscle beneath her hand were warm, but there was no padding between. Even his eyes seemed recessed slightly in their sockets, the rise of his cheekbones and the hollows on either side of his jaw much more pronounced than even the zombie Game had made them. He didn’t look thin, he looked _starved_ , hungry. And for more than simple nutrition.

His soft brown eyes wandered over her, visually gorging himself with the sight of her. Yet there was an innocence in those eyes, a gentleness that let her know he wasn’t concerned about anything that might be under that first layer of texture map. He was just happy- painfully happy- to see her. It was good to see him too; to look at him and recognize the person she loved. Not a memory and not a creature rendered so alien by distance and hardship that she barely recognized him, but a mix of the two. They both bore scars, both had changed, and that gave them the sort of sameness that only joint trial could bring. Like a tattoo it had left a now familiar mark on both of them, an invisible stamp of identification as unique and permanent as PID code. She recognized him now. This was a man she knew and would never be able to mistake for any other.


	6. Back at The Ranch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bob gets a closer look at WEB culture.

It was an impressive complex, really. Cobbled together out of everything from creature bones to sculptured hunks of data to live vegetation, Bob wondered how they managed to hold it all together? The citizens were only mildly less strange than the Riders, though few were so badly degraded as Gif. Still, all but the youngest children bore some mark of damage. Indeed, it seemed the older one got, the more defaced they became. However, those who were not Riders or Soldiers were in marginally better shape. This was their home, both ranch and citadel; where they kept their wives, their sons and daughters; their ill and elderly. To them, it was a city; to Bob, it felt more like the inside of a gargantuan null warren.

“ _You shall be residing with myownself, life-mate, and offspring_ ,” Gif informed him. “ _We shall eat and then hold council. We must decide what is to be done about you._ ”

If he hadn’t already established a rudimentary understanding of the culture and language, Bob might have worried they would roast him along with the main course. As it was, he merely nodded and followed along.

Gif’s home, or at least the front door- it was hard to tell from outside where one dwelling ended and another began – led into a rough yet surprisingly cozy interior. Rugs and pillows of creature fur lay on the floor, and a primitive table indicated where the meal was to be served. A cheerful if smoky spark and heating unit took up most of one wall; shelves for storage and Sprite alike had been either carved or built into the others. It was a painfully nostalgic moment on several levels when Bob found himself swarmed and knocked to the floor by six children and two furry little pets.

“ _Offspring_ ,” Gif beamed, removing his helm and smiling his grisly smile.

“Cute kids,” Bob grunted in his own language, trying to extricate himself from the exuberant youngsters. A woman with shaggy, matted hair and blank blue eyes shooed them off to chores with a clap of her hands.

Gif gave an exclamation Bob could not decipher and wrapped his arms around the woman, pressing the remains of his lips against hers.

“ _Pretty, this is life-mate Pi. We are one-code for two year. Say greeting._ ”

“ _Greeting and welcome_ ,” Pi offered along with her hand.

“ _Greeting_ ,” Bob replied, shaking. Almost immediately Pi went back to work, but she and the children kept sneaking unsubtle glances at him.

 _All yours?_ Bob asked, hoping he’d gotten the phrasing right. He must have, for Gif nodded.

_Six of seven. We are blessed with so many alive._

Bob wasn’t sure how to take that. _What of seventh?_

_Deleted._

_Apology._

Gif shrugged, yet the grief still manifested in eyes without pupil or iris. _Many cycles ago. Many offspring log off too early._

Bob nodded, mentally untangling the words as they came to him. Infant mortality was practically unheard of in the Net, but out here, he could understand the hazards.

“ _Have you offspring?_ ”

“Uh no…” Bob stammered reverting momentarily back to HTML. “ _No offspring. No life-mate._ ”

“ _Ah, bachelor._ ”

“ _Yes, bachelor,_ ” Bob repeated, more to test the word on his own tongue than anything else. “ _What is to be done about me?_

“ _That is for all to decide._

“ _Shall I decide too?_ ,” Bob asked, hoping he’d get a vote in his own fate. Gif nodded.

“ _Certainly, certainly. It is your own decision. We are to help you whatever it may be._ ”

The lumpy grammar snarled the string of words and even halfway through dinner- which proved to be a blessedly burnt side of meat and curiously reconstituted vegetables- he wasn’t sure if he’d gotten the sentence front-to-back. Still pondering, he followed Gif back out into the tangled maze of hallways and wormholes into a surprisingly large, cavernous room. No doubt this was the asteroid’s core. 

It didn’t look much like the Super Computer council chamber, or even one of the great rooms of MainFrame’s principle office, but the earmarks of a parliamentary hall were still there. Some official-looking skins draped the otherwise bare rock walls and what appeared to be a couple of improvised high seats were arranged in a “U” at the center of the room around an ember pit- the primary source of both heat and light. The few smoky lanterns suspended from the ceiling did little more than add ambiance and a layer of soot to the cavern.

Several other sprites in varying degrees of decay were milling about. Some were seated on skins spread along the wall, others stood, talking. However, upon Gif’s entrance, everyone turned and fell silent.

“ _Come center, all!_ ” Gif instructed, “ _I have brought he who calls himself ‘Guardian’ to the decision hall. Let us discuss what is to be done about him._ ”

Mumbling agreement, the sprites organized themselves, some taking seats around the pit while others retreated to the wall. Bob had thought that Gif might be leading the proceedings, but it was difficult to tell who was actually in charge. The seating arrangements weren’t terribly helpful. Bob was given a seat to Gif’s left, while an elderly male sprite took the seat at the center of the horseshoe.

“ _You are the one who calls himself ‘Guardian’, whom Gif and Riders call ‘Pretty’?_ ” the elder asked.

“ _Yes, sir,_ ” Bob replied, cringing briefly with renewed embarrassment at the nick-name he’d been given.

“ _What is ‘Guardian’?_ ”

Oh boy. Hoping desperately that he had enough vocabulary, Bob did his best to explain. “ _Guardian is warrior-healer. Follow honored program; ‘repair and protect’. Protect sprites, protect system. Conquer challenges. Repair damage, remove threat._ ”

The words sounded awkward and primitive on his tongue, but it was the best approximation he could come up with. His audience seemed to have gotten the gist of it, however, for they murmured wonderingly to each another.

“ _Guardian in your own system is much like Rider here,_ ” the elder affirmed with a pleased-looking nod. “ _Gif has done well to show you to us._ ”

“ _Thank you,_ ” Gif responded with a nod of his own.

“ _Where is home system?_ ” the Elder asked him.

“MainFrame, in the NET,” he didn’t know the approximations in their language, but it didn’t seem to matter. The assembled chieftains were nodding to one another again.

“ _You wish to return?_ ”

“Heck yeah! Er...,” The falsetto edge to his voice was more embarrassing than the lapse in language. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “ _Yes, please. Left home in great danger. Bad threat. Must protect._ ”


End file.
